Texas Rangers Keeping Closer Situation Open For Now

The Texas Rangers provided an example on Monday of how they could line up their bullpen in a high-leverage situation.

DETROIT — The Texas Rangers desperately needed what they got from their bullpen on Monday night — four scoreless innings in a 1-0 win over the Detroit Tigers.

Rangers manager Bruce Bochy used the struggling Jose Leclerc and two of his high-leverage relievers, David Robertson and Kirby Yates, to secure the win. It was Yates who got the save, his first of the season.

But don’t call him the closer just yet.

“We’ll keep it open,” Bochy said. “But I like the way he’s throwing the ball right now.”

Yates threw a perfect ninth, inducing three groundouts. The right-hander threw eight pitches and earned his sixth save since the start of last season. He just turned 37 and has 63 career saves, including an MLB-high 41 in 2019 with San Diego, which led to his only All-Star Game selection.

Robertson handled the eighth and it was a bit of an adventure for the right-hander, who turned 39 last week. He gave up a one-out double to Mark Canha, and then Spencer Torkleson took first base due to a catcher’s interference call on the Rangers’ Jonah Heim.

Robertson then got Kerry Carpenter to line out to a perfectly-aligned Josh Smith at shortstop and struck out rookie Wenceel Perez to escape the jam.

Robertson has worked primarily as a set-up man so far, but he has more saves than anyone on the roster with 175.

But it was Leclerc who came up big. Bochy leaned on the right-hander for two innings instead of his usual one, hoping to rest an overtaxed bullpen.

It worked out. He worked around a one-out single in the sixth and got a fantastic catch from center fielder Leody Taveras in the seventh to get the ball to Robertson and Yates.

“We’ve been using our bullpen a lot and he was fresh and ready to go,” Bochy said.

He also said he was impressed with Leclerc’s stuff in his last appearance in Houston, which was a one-inning appearance with a walk and two strikeouts.  

Bochy believes he has four relievers with closer-like stuff, if you include Josh Sborz, who is on the 15-day injured list. That may lead to a lot of mixing and matching until someone consistently takes hold of the ninth inning.

“It’s nice to have guys that are comfortable with that (closing),” Bochy said.